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China Single’s Day, Chinese shoppers spent $17.79 billion on site

Author:Cathy

Release on :2016-11-12

Yesterday — 11/11 — is "Singles Day" in China, the holiday when online retail giant Alibaba encourages single people to celebrate and buy presents for themselves.

Alibaba says that over the course of 24 hours, Chinese shoppers spent $17.79 billion on the site. That's a bit short of the $20 billion some analysts had expected sales to reach but easily surpasses the previous record, last year's $14.3 billion.

Origin of Single’s Day

Singles' Day (literally: "bare sticks holiday") is an entertaining festival widespread among young Chinese people, to celebrate the fact that they are proud of being single. The date, November 11th (11/11), is chosen because the number "1" resembles an individual that is alone. This festival has gradually become one of the largest online shopping days in the world,with sales in Alibaba's sites Tmall and Taobao at US$5.8 billion in 2013, US$9.3 billion in 2014, US$14.3 billion in 2015, and over US$17.7 billion in 2016.

Most sellers had good sales yesterday, not only those who sells on Tmall and TAOBAO, but also for sellers on other online sites such as JINGDONG(JD).